In the current season, all-female teams officiated matches in the 3rd and 4th divisions. Now Gladbach professional Christoph Kramer has spoken out in favour of permanently installing women in men’s professional football.

“I think women should be used as fourth officials because they have a more de-escalating effect,” says Kramer in the current episode of the podcast “FE:male view on football”.

Since the retirement of Bibiana Steinhaus-Webb, there has been no woman in this job in the men’s Bundesliga – even though there have been some recent changes in the divisions below: In November, an all-female referee team took charge of a match in the 3rd Division for the first time, followed only last week by the Bavarian Regional League. Dr. Riem Hussein is currently the only female fourth official in the 2nd Bundesliga. In the top flight, however, the job is currently only held by men.

“Less snotty with a woman “

Kramer himself is rarely confronted with fourth officials, but he sees a comparable situation in post-match interviews, for example: “If I’m really angry, I’d be less snotty with a woman and get over it quicker,” says the 2014 World Cup winner, explaining to presenters Valeska Homburg and Anna-Sara Lange: “If you and a male colleague ask me the same question, I’d think to the man: ‘Is he trying to pull the wool over my eyes? And with you I would think: ‘She doesn’t mean any harm.’ That’s possible. “

Not only on the sidelines of Bundesliga stadiums, but also in the “powerful positions” of professional football, Kramer would like to see a higher proportion of women. “I believe that women have less ego than men, that they don’t need to make their mark and that they are more communicative,” the midfielder says in the podcast. “Those are qualities that would certainly be very good here and there.”

However, he doesn’t think much of a mandatory women’s quota. “If women’s quotas are a topic in the media, there is of course a danger that a woman will be on the sports show and everyone will think: ‘She’s only there because of the quota’ – and that is then totally unfair,” he explains. He himself “never thinks about whether it’s a man or a woman and where they might come from”, but also sees it as generational: “It’s going to be different in our generation – and that’s a good thing. “